Finding the driving force behind mobile stories
By Hilary Powell
It isn’t as big as the Second City, but neighboring Aurora still says that it’s “a city second to none.” Chicago may boast the Sears Tower, the best popcorn in the Midwest and Oprah. But Aurora’s got a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a stop on the Underground Railroad and a building that houses records of black veterans. How do I know all of this? I found out from a map.
The Greene House is the only house in Aurora designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s stop 17 on the self-guided driving tour available on the city’s official website.
While researching ways to tell locative stories, I came across several websites, like Aurora’s official site, that offer self-guided tours. As we identify newsworthy, Chicago-specific stories to tell, Team LoJo must figure out the best ways for our viewers to travel between the places that will bring those stories to life.
A walking tour might do the trick. When the weather is nice, the city is dotted with folks walking along scenic Lake Shore Drive or trotting with their dogs in the city’s vibrant communities. But with the city’s magnitude, it might be hard to contain a story in an area capable of walking.
So we pondered a driving tour. There are some great examples online that could give us guidance about creating a story people can really step to. For example, the Aurora’s self-guided tour of historic landmarks. For an example on a larger scale, I turned to a site linked from Denver’s local government Web site. Denver Today is a website that lists local walking tours and driving tours around the city. So there’s proof that even a medium-sized city distribute information effectively using a driving tour.
But then I got to thinking, what about the character of a city? Shouldn’t that come into play when considering the best way to deliver news or a story to the city residents? And when you think of Chicago, you think of the elevated train, also known as the ‘El.’ It bisects and bristles in a multi-colored maze through every major neighborhood in the city. It’s even famous for the web it weaves in the center of the city, known as ‘The Loop.’ To think of transportation in Chicago without the El, is like imagining New York without the subway.
I’ve found several examples of getting around to location-based stories on foot, and by car. But I had trouble trying to find stories told by way of train. In addition, there is not much out there about the technical capabilities of using mobile devices to take tours via train. But that’s the kind of challenge this team is up for.
If Team LoJo is going to tell a story about the Second City, our first priority is to be accurate and stay true to the character of the city.The next step for our team may well be onto a train, with our bold technical devices, to test the tracks.
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